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><A
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>24.2. File System Level Backup</A
></H1
><P
>   An alternative backup strategy is to directly copy the files that
   <SPAN
CLASS="PRODUCTNAME"
>PostgreSQL</SPAN
> uses to store the data in the database;
   <A
HREF="creating-cluster.html"
>Section 17.2</A
> explains where these files
   are located.  You can use whatever method you prefer
   for doing file system backups; for example:

</P><PRE
CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING"
>tar -cf backup.tar /usr/local/pgsql/data</PRE
><P>
  </P
><P
>   There are two restrictions, however, which make this method
   impractical, or at least inferior to the <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>pg_dump</SPAN
>
   method:

   <P
></P
></P><OL
TYPE="1"
><LI
><P
>      The database server <SPAN
CLASS="emphasis"
><I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>must</I
></SPAN
> be shut down in order to
      get a usable backup. Half-way measures such as disallowing all
      connections will <SPAN
CLASS="emphasis"
><I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>not</I
></SPAN
> work
      (in part because <TT
CLASS="COMMAND"
>tar</TT
> and similar tools do not take
      an atomic snapshot of the state of the file system,
      but also because of internal buffering within the server).
      Information about stopping the server can be found in
      <A
HREF="server-shutdown.html"
>Section 17.5</A
>.  Needless to say, you
      also need to shut down the server before restoring the data.
     </P
></LI
><LI
><P
>      If you have dug into the details of the file system layout of the
      database, you might be tempted to try to back up or restore only certain
      individual tables or databases from their respective files or
      directories. This will <SPAN
CLASS="emphasis"
><I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>not</I
></SPAN
> work because the
      information contained in these files is not usable without
      the commit log files,
      <TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>pg_clog/*</TT
>, which contain the commit status of
      all transactions. A table file is only usable with this
      information. Of course it is also impossible to restore only a
      table and the associated <TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>pg_clog</TT
> data
      because that would render all other tables in the database
      cluster useless.  So file system backups only work for complete
      backup and restoration of an entire database cluster.
     </P
></LI
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><P>
  </P
><P
>   An alternative file-system backup approach is to make a
   <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"consistent snapshot"</SPAN
> of the data directory, if the
   file system supports that functionality (and you are willing to
   trust that it is implemented correctly).  The typical procedure is
   to make a <SPAN
CLASS="QUOTE"
>"frozen snapshot"</SPAN
> of the volume containing the
   database, then copy the whole data directory (not just parts, see
   above) from the snapshot to a backup device, then release the frozen
   snapshot.  This will work even while the database server is running.
   However, a backup created in this way saves
   the database files in a state as if the database server was not
   properly shut down; therefore, when you start the database server
   on the backed-up data, it will think the previous server instance
   crashed and will replay the WAL log.  This is not a problem; just
   be aware of it (and be sure to include the WAL files in your backup).
   You can perform a <TT
CLASS="COMMAND"
>CHECKPOINT</TT
> before taking the
   snapshot to reduce recovery time.
  </P
><P
>   If your database is spread across multiple file systems, there might not
   be any way to obtain exactly-simultaneous frozen snapshots of all
   the volumes.  For example, if your data files and WAL log are on different
   disks, or if tablespaces are on different file systems, it might
   not be possible to use snapshot backup because the snapshots
   <SPAN
CLASS="emphasis"
><I
CLASS="EMPHASIS"
>must</I
></SPAN
> be simultaneous.
   Read your file system documentation very carefully before trusting
   the consistent-snapshot technique in such situations.
  </P
><P
>   If simultaneous snapshots are not possible, one option is to shut down
   the database server long enough to establish all the frozen snapshots.
   Another option is to perform a continuous archiving base backup (<A
HREF="continuous-archiving.html#BACKUP-BASE-BACKUP"
>Section 24.3.2</A
>) because such backups are immune to file
   system changes during the backup.  This requires enabling continuous
   archiving just during the backup process; restore is done using
   continuous archive recovery (<A
HREF="continuous-archiving.html#BACKUP-PITR-RECOVERY"
>Section 24.3.3</A
>).
  </P
><P
>   Another option is to use <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>rsync</SPAN
> to perform a file
   system backup.  This is done by first running <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>rsync</SPAN
>
   while the database server is running, then shutting down the database
   server just long enough to do a second <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>rsync</SPAN
>.  The
   second <SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>rsync</SPAN
> will be much quicker than the first,
   because it has relatively little data to transfer, and the end result
   will be consistent because the server was down.  This method
   allows a file system backup to be performed with minimal downtime.
  </P
><P
>   Note that a file system backup will typically be larger
   than an SQL dump. (<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>pg_dump</SPAN
> does not need to dump
   the contents of indexes for example, just the commands to recreate
   them.)  However, taking a file system backup might be faster.
  </P
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> Dump</TD
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